Customers browse Apple Inc. products at the company's Sanlitun store in Beijing, China, on Friday, Jan. 21, 2011. Apple's four outlets in China are the most trafficked, highest revenue stores in the world, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said last week. China will contribute "well over half" of Apple's total earnings growth in the next two years, and the figure could be as much as 100 percent of the growth, Morgan Stanley estimates. Photographer: Nelson Ching/Bloomberg

Photo: Nelson Ching, Bloomberg

Customers browse Apple Inc. products at the company's Sanlitun...

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Customers browse Apple Inc. iPads at the company's Sanlitun store in Beijing, China, on Friday, Jan. 21, 2011. Apple's four outlets in China are the most trafficked, highest revenue stores in the world, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said last week. China will contribute "well over half" of Apple's total earnings growth in the next two years, and the figure could be as much as 100 percent of the growth, Morgan Stanley estimates. Photographer: Nelson Ching/Bloomberg

Gao Jun arrived at the newest Apple Inc. store in Beijing 30 minutes before it opened in hopes of beating the crowd. The crowd was already there.

About 35 people stood in subfreezing temperatures this week waiting for the Joy City Mall outlet to open at 10 a.m. Gao said he needed technical support for the iPhone 4 and the MacBook Air laptop he bought in the past two months.

"There's always lots of people if you come in the afternoon, and weekends are absolutely crazy," said Gao, 50, a publisher. "Hopefully, at this hour I'll avoid some of the worst of it."

Gao's dilemma helps illustrate why China has Apple's highest-grossing stores worldwide less than three years after the Cupertino company opened its first one in Beijing. The company said in February it planned to open as many as 25 retail stores through 2012 in the world's most populous nation - a market that Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook last week called a "top priority."

"Apple has an iconic product, and they are well-positioned in China," said Ted Dean, president of Beijing-based technology consultant BDA China. "There is a category of consumer in China that wants the best-in-class product, and they are willing to spend to get it."

Revenue in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan in the first quarter quadrupled to $2.6 billion from a year earlier, Cook said during a Jan. 18 earnings call. Those regions will contribute "well over half" and possibly as much as 100 percent of Apple's total earnings growth in the next two years, Morgan Stanley estimates.

"We put enormous energy into China, and the results of that have been absolutely staggering," said Cook, who will handle the company's day-to-day operations while Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs takes medical leave.

"It's clear that we're introducing a lot of people to Apple who previously had not been introduced to the company," Cook said.

Apple had 323 stores worldwide at the end of the first quarter, with 87 of them outside the United States. The retail stores generated a record $3.85 billion in the first quarter, compared with $1.97 billion a year earlier.

The four Apple stores in China generate, on average, the highest traffic and highest revenue of any company stores in the world, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said on the call.

Worldwide, the company's stores averaged $12 million in revenue, a 69 percent increase from $7.1 million a year earlier, Oppenheimer said. Average sales volume at the international stores exceeded that at the U.S. stores.

The world's second-most valuable company opened its first China store in Beijing's Sanlitun Village shopping center in 2008. Before then, the primary way for Chinese to buy Apple products was at gray-market retailers selling merchandise smuggled from Hong Kong.

In the past six months, Apple added the Joy City Mall store and two in Shanghai.

Apple this year plans to open 40 to 50 stores worldwide, with more than half of them outside the United States, the company said in its quarterly earnings report. It didn't specify the number of openings in China.

The company's Hong Kong-based spokeswoman, Jill Tan, declined to comment on plans for new stores in China.

Apple doesn't disclose individual-store revenue. The company's "Cube" on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue is likely its most-trafficked U.S. store because it is the flagship location, said Ashok Kumar, an analyst with Rodman & Renshaw LLC. The underground store is always open.

"Nobody has had the success that Apple has had" with its retail outlets, Kumar said. "The level of customer loyalty is unmatched."

Company sales in China will surge as Apple adds new products and more stores, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty wrote in a Jan. 20 report to clients. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology this month approved the sale of the 3G iPad tablet, in addition to the Wi-Fi version now available.

Apple will more than triple sales in China this year to $9.4 billion from $2.9 billion last year, Huberty wrote. Sales may reach $15.2 billion in 2012, she estimated.